Endure
by Scribbler
Summary: So what were Jean's final thoughts at the end of X2? What prompted her to do what she did? (Needless to say, hefty spoilers reside here) [Complete fic]


DISCLAIMER: As standard. I do not own the universe or characters of any incarnation of the X-Men, they just show up at my house and eat the meagre contents of my 'fridge.  
  
A/N: There have no-doubt been many, many, many (can I stress this enough?) ficlets devoted to Jean's final thoughts at the end of X2. So I'll just add my own attempt onto the pile. Needless to say, spoilers for a rather crucial scene ensue. Reviews will be cherished like little written children.   
  
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'Endure' By Scribbler  
  
September 2003  
  
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The walkway was cold beneath her feet. The prerequisite chunky boots, an integral part of every official X-Men uniform, provided little protection from it. Sure, the soles were thick enough, but so far north the cold was almost a tangible thing, squirming right through the leather and burrowing into her feet. It lived here, as much a part of the landscape as the mountains and lake itself.   
  
The lake...  
  
For a second she paused, the urge to stop and turn back astronomical. Nobody knew she was gone, yet. She could just go back, pretend she'd never considered anything so stupid, and... and...  
  
And what?   
  
The swell of thoughts rippled around her, shielding techniques she and the Professor had taken such pains to teach everyone forgotten in their panic. The children may not have fully understood what was going on, other than the situation was bad, but they grasped enough to be scared. It didn't take a genius to work out things were serious when Logan was pacing the deck, looking like he wanted to skewer the nearest person to relieve stress.   
  
Those not already strapped in huddled away from the adults. A few rusty whispers added themselves to the atmosphere, voices made scratchy from misuse and screaming for help. Some of the older kids were trying to keep calm and transfer the same into their peers, but their efforts were largely unsuccessful.   
  
Logan was tense. They all were. It gripped her mind like a vice, squeezing. Her breath came quicker, nothing to do with the dull throb of her leg, and she wilfully closed her eyes, banishing her own panic along with theirs. She could sense the mounting terror - smell it, almost. Fear filled her nostrils and brain both, and she all but choked on it.   
  
These people... they meant so much to her. She'd sensed so much from them in the past. The happiness of a passed exam. The triumph of a training exercise finally mastered. The contentment of knowing they were accepted, wanted - needed by others. Things both simple and complex had been shared with her, whether consciously or inadvertently when their shielding had slipped. She knew them, better than they knew themselves. She was their teacher, their doctor, their guide, and their friend.  
  
But the things she sensed now...  
  
It was wrong. Everything crowding into her brain was wrong in some horrible, fundamental way. Negative emotions were easier to sense than positive. It was some evil quirk of the universe, designed to make life more difficult for telepaths. But it had no right being here, infecting these people. These innocents.  
  
She knew how Rogue and Bobby were more frightened for the other than themselves. She knew how frustrated Logan was, a perfect mirror of Scott; though neither of them realised it. She knew how Jubilee was trying hard not to cry, because tough kids didn't shed tears. She knew how Artie was taking solace from clinging onto Rogue's leg, heedless of the danger doing so presented. She knew that Kurt was reciting a prayer inside his head, his thoughts rushed and foreign, yet understandable to her.   
  
She knew how weary the Professor was - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. There was a tiredness in him she'd sensed very few times in anybody, but when she brushed his thoughts he snapped it back, out of view. It was instinctive, and she could tell that he was too preoccupied to recognise she'd been there, fringing his thinking.  
  
His was the more powerful mind. This was undisputed fact. Xavier was the most powerful telepath on the planet - Stryker had compounded this truth by implementing him in his plan.   
  
But right now... she comprehended with some shock that her mind was the stronger. He had powers she could never dream of, let alone aspire to, yet his thoughts were exhausted in a way she'd never known them to be before. Somnolent. He was almost... accepting of what was going to happen.  
  
This man, this person who had practically raised her, taught her all she knew, and encouraged her to surpass him in various aspects of life - he was accepting of what was coming. Worried, yes. Sad, most certainly. However, deep in his subconscious was a circle of honesty that clearly stated that he didn't think they were going to get out of there alive.  
  
_No._  
  
The thought arrived in her brain quite suddenly. It was one of her own, but it might as well have been someone else's, for all the strength in it. She was more frightened than she'd ever been in her life. Fear ran from her in rivulets, trailing away in her wake as she forced herself off the gangway and onto the ground.  
  
The snow was melted in places around here, heat from the engines creating patches of bare, hard-packed earth. Her injuries jolted when she touched down, and she winced, but ploughed on regardless. She needed to get away from the jet before she lost her nerve. She was not a brave person, by nature. Her stubbornness and loyalty were what prompted any acts that could be considered heroic. That was why she'd trained as a researcher and not a real doctor until circumstances demanded she go get the extra qualification. She didn't like having people's lives in her hands - it was too much responsibility.   
  
_Universe, I hate your sense of irony._  
  
She tromped mulishly, ignoring her hurts and focussing instead on the way ahead. Utilising her last opportunity to do so, she retracted her mind from its link to Scott. To stay bound to him would prove disastrous, and defeat the object of the exercise. He had to be safe. They all had to be safe.   
  
And so she shut herself off from each of them in turn, pulling away from familiar thoughts and feelings and turning her attention inward. When her mind ceased to be, it would pull down anyone else with it, like a psychic riptide. What she chose for herself was one thing, but she was not about to let the others suffer just because she wanted someone to hold her hand at the last second.  
  
The last mind, however, refused to let go so easily. She hitched on it, and blinked.   
  
Warmth suffused her, fatherly and inquiring. She felt the unspoken question, and answered it as best she could. She let Xavier feel what she had felt, allowing him to glimpse the imprint of the children's minds on her own. She let him see what she had seen, and when he probed, she let him see what she planned to do.   
  
She wasn't asking for his permission. She was a big girl, now, and could make her own decisions. His tone of thought turned dismayed, and she pushed him away until she felt his attention splinter.   
  
_They've noticed._ Cold and clinical, part of her realised that Logan, Scott and the others had at last perceived she was gone. They weren't happy about it.  
  
Neither was she, but that was beside the point. Nobody with anything to live for ever wants their own death.   
  
She had so much to live for...  
  
And then Xavier was there again, and this time his mental contact was different. He knew she wasn't going to be dissuaded - he knew he too well to even try it again. she was the little girl he'd never had, and he was both proud and disappointed at what she was doing. Proud, because things he'd taught her were coming into effect. Disappointed, because of how they had come to do so.  
  
The dream he'd wished for and worked towards for so long was taking one of his own from him. She felt his pain - it was too much for him to screen completely from her after what he'd been through - and it scraped along her skin, unpleasant and aching.  
  
Yet instead of forcing her to come back, as he could so easily have done, he opened up to her, presenting himself as a vessel for her to say what she couldn't when looking into their eyes.   
  
Mind-to-mind contact she could do, but seeing people face-to-face, seeing their expressions was something she'd never been particularly adept at. There was so much falsity there... and so much genuineness. The tightening of Scott's jaw, the hint of sorrow in Ororo's eyes - unconscious things they didn't realise they were doing. It added a flavour when compared to the tone of their minds, evoking memories of times when life had been so much simpler for all.  
  
She almost buckled, then, almost fell to her knees and wept like a baby at the understanding in Xavier for what she had to do. He didn't want her to go, but he grasped the importance of it. She could save them. She wanted to save them.   
  
Her final goodbyes passed in a whirl of psychic conflict with herself. Even from here she could sense the emotions of her teammates and charges, and she bit down so hard on her tongue that blood flowed into her mouth.   
  
When she broke the contact, she broke it swiftly and completely, and a gaping void replaced what had been filled with tenderness and sorrow.   
  
There was no turning back. Not now. There hadn't been since the day she first arrived at the Institute.   
  
_Help,_ she thought weakly, knowing nobody could hear her anymore. Her ties were severed. She was on her own. _Oh God, I can't do this. It's too big. It's too much - _  
  
Noise. It crammed into her ears and filled her suddenly empty thoughts. The surge of water rose up in her mind's eye long before it would arrive in the physical world. She saw the jet, battered and torn from the world in a crunch of metal. She saw the world in hues of bluish-grey, far beneath the lethal waves. She saw what would be and could be, should she act.  
  
And again, the thought arrived unbidden. It was hers, and yet it was not hers. It was something more, something potent and fierce. It was the very essence of feeling, all done up in resolve and love.  
  
_No._  
  
She loved these people. She would not let them die. She *could* not let them die.  
  
_No._  
  
And with that thought, she was abruptly filled with the most delicious sensation she'd ever discerned in the entire of her existence. Completely incongruous, it coursed through her, taking her fear and wrapping it up in sheets of strength; delving down to her very core and dredging up a power she used to devastating effect on the world around her. It was ancient and newness, life and death, closeness and distance - it was everything and nothing all at once; some primeval thing she'd had inside her since forever, yet something outer that could never be described by mere words.  
  
Her actions came involuntary and fervent, and when the wall of water finally did come, she barely recognised what would be her own end. It was more than she could handle, but less than she could deal with. It was a force of nature, but she was a force of spirit.   
  
This was something beyond herself. This was fate, destiny - whatever you wanted to call it. This was what she had to do, and however painful it might be, however scared she was inside, this was what she would do. It was what she had chosen to do.  
  
She would protect them, because she loved them.  
  
Love... it heaved upwards from her, thrusting the jet into the sky like a rock from a slingshot. They *would* be safe. She would make sure of it.   
  
And then the world was nothing but a quickly descending wall of black.   
  
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FINIS.  
  
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End file.
